Case Study

A global business advisory firm underwent a site migration and needed SEO guidance to ensure the move did not negatively impact organic traffic.

Challenge

The client decided to migrate their global site to a new URL structure after an Elite SEM audit turned up fundamental problems with their existing CMS. They brought on a developer for initial planning, but when they realized they were risking their SEO ranking and organic traffic loss, they hired Elite to guide them.

The development team’s recommendations and requirements proved to be a major challenge. With only three months to prepare, time was of the essence.

Solution

The client’s main goal was to keep brand authority and organic traffic stable throughout the migration. Elite’s SEO team mapped the process carefully to ensure all technical SEO issues were addressed prior to launch: benchmark reporting, proper homepage canonicalization, and extensive 301 redirect mapping.

Following migration, Elite transitioned to support mode to identify any implementation problems on the new site, starting with 404 errors. The team reviewed all legacy URLs to ensure they were properly 301 redirected, and then performed a full site analysis (Q/A) to identify user experience issues.

Results

In the four months post-migration, organic traffic increased by 19% (year-over-year). Total traffic increased 2%, with new users rising by 24% and bounce rate improving by 1.8%. Following that success, Elite SEM now works on three additional regional sites for this client.